sugarpaste cake making question

[bluecats]

I'm making a birthday cake for my nephew. I've made birthday cake with chocolate buttercream frosting in the number shape. I want to now cover it with sugarpaste (white so it looks neat, then decorate it).

I don't want to put marzipan, Do I cover the whole cake in buttercream, then stick the sugarpaste on??? I'm so confused, or do I leave it a bit bare, maybe wet it with some jam and stick the sugarpaste on?

Please help. Thank you.

It works best if you use marzipan first as it gives you an even base but if you don't want to then I'd suggest you get some apricot jam (without bits in it) and put a thin layer of that on the cake to stick the sugar paste to the cake.

sugar paste straight onto buttercream will be fine. nothing else needed.

x-posts.

I agree with cbmum that you need something between the sugarpaste and the cake, but IME buttercream is the best option as the 'filler'

how do you make your chocolate buttercream?

and what is sugarpaste? i want to make DD a birthday cake and whilst i am great at actualy baking teh cake im a bit pants at the rest

if you're pants at icing then forget all this and do the 'Nigella' chocolate icing....

equal quantities (by weight) of cream and chocolate. Heat the cream to just before it boils. Stir in the chunks of chocolate until smooth and glossy. Pour onto cake and spread about a bit to make is reasonably even. let it cool. it will harden and smooth out as it cools.

tastes a million times yummier than nasty sugar paste and looks great.

for extra yumminess cut the cake into layers and add extra 'icing' in between them

btw this works great as a general purpose chocolate sauce for puddings too.

ooh that sounds good.

will have a go at a test run over the weekend.

thanks

can you send a piece in the post...

oh and it is compusary to use the left over cream to make a 'white russian' (equal quantities cream, kalua, vodka)

sure.

though with royal mail being as rubbish as it is, god knows when you;ll get it.

Oh is it single, double or whipping cream?

double.

and when i said 'equal quantities', what I should have said was ...

the same weight in chocolate as the volume of cream, so for example..

250g choc
250ml cream

thank you everybody!!

I'm going to stick on the chocolate buttercream.. it looks yummy just with chocolate buttercream, will clean up tomorrow and stick on the sugarpaste!! thank you verybody )

bluecats i would be careful about the quantity of buttercream that you use over and around the cake as it's likely to seep thru the sugarpaste
this only needs to be a thin layer and does need a v fine coating of cooled boiled jam over this
for a really nice finish add one layer of sugarpaste then allow it to dry out overnight before lightly dampening and applying the final layer
a bit more of a fiddle i agree but well worth the end result